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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28939599">In The Embers</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account'>orphan_account</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Walking Dead &amp; Related Fandoms, The Walking Dead (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Hostage Situations, Suicidal Thoughts</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 09:34:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>12,901</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28939599</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Morgan never catches up to Carol after her run-in with Jiro on the road. Just when she thinks there's nothing left of her, she's faced with her biggest challenge to date.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Daryl Dixon/Carol Peletier</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Picks up at the house where Morgan finds Carol is 6x16 and diverges from there.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><em>This was as good a place to die as any</em>, Carol thought as she looked out on the ghost town and wondered where exactly she was. She’d picked off a handful of walkers on her way in, only to realise there had been little point in the exercise. She had no interest in dying, but it was going to happen now whether she liked it or not. Sooner or later, she'd be one of them. </p><p>A knife wound was hardly insurmountable but out here, with no real supplies, with no medication, she was under no illusion that she might recover. People had died of lesser injuries and she’d watched it happen. She’d watched an entire community combed over by a glorified flu and they’d been helpless in the face of it. The Asian man’s neat stab at her gut would be the end of her whether her pride accepted it or not.  </p><p>When the grey-haired man from the truck found her, she had no strength to fight. If she was lucky, he’d put a bullet between her eyes, and she’d be saved the unwelcome experience of reanimation. She feared that far more than death itself. </p><p>“Dumb bitch!” He drew close to her with his gun poised, letting her curl back into the porch if it provided her some benign comfort. “I can feel myself dyin’. Thought people were just pussies losin’ faith when they said that but y’can feel it. Dyin’ don’t bother me. I’m gonna settle the score before I go, though.”</p><p>Carol would let him have his peace. She wasn’t afraid of pain. She wasn’t afraid of anything anymore and that’s what was truly scary. Her pistol remained in her coat’s pocket but there was only one bullet left and she wasn’t going to waste it on him. If the time came and she felt her consciousness slipping, she hoped that she might find the courage to make good use of it. </p><p>“Are you listenin’ to me, bitch?” The man’s tone was sharp-edged and the way he sneered reminded her of Ed. She’d been trying hard to stop thinking about her ex-husband but after Jessie and Pete, the dead man had been haunting her dreams more than usual. </p><p>He fired a shot into her shoulder to punctuate his question. It hit bone, she felt the bullet rip through and bounce off the door behind her, falling with a gentle clink to the ground. It hurt more than she’d imagined it would, but she gritted her teeth. Her realisation that she still hadn’t answered him came suddenly and Carol looked up to meet his gaze.</p><p>“I’m gonna kill you, just like you killed my buddies out there on the road, but it ain’t gonna be nice and quick. I want some company on my deathbed.” </p><p>Stray walkers were making their way steadily up the street. The gunshot rang out like a call to prayer. Carol wasn’t worried by their presence. She figured that soon, they’d be on the same team anyway.  </p><p>The man’s breaths were slow and laboured. It was a clean wound, through and through, and if he’d had the good sense to race back to the Sanctuary, he’d probably have survived. Carol was glad that he’d chosen to seek her out. In a narcissistic way, she had been reluctant to surrender to a stab wound. Life was slowly ebbing from her in the way that the man had described and that was never what she’d imagined. </p><p>All her life, she’d thought it would be sudden. A beating she never woke up from. An attack that left her torn limb from limb by walkers. A final blaze of glory to save the lives of everyone she was so eager to protect. She hadn’t imagined there’d be so much to time to think. </p><p>She smiled. Content to know that she had at least left Alexandria with an advantage, however slight. Her death for five of theirs. Five men who could’ve killed Rick or Michonne or…<em>Daryl. </em>Five Saviours, she told herself, though she couldn’t be sure. If she was dead, she could finally stop killing for them. She could finally stop fighting. </p><p>“The hell you got to smile about? What’s wrong with you?” His words stung the way that Ed’s used to. She wished she could stop making these comparisons. She didn’t mind dying. She didn’t mind being killed, not even as slowly and painfully as this. But the thought of letting a man like Ed hurt her again, that got under her skin. </p><p>“Ain’t nothin’ wrong with me now. I’m dying. In a world that wants us all dead.” Carol swallowed down bile that rose in her throat. The Wolves’ words felt truer now and she despised herself for uttering them. “Are you gonna finish this already?”</p><p>“You think you’ve suffered enough?” He asked, leaning in close, unafraid of whatever waning strength she possessed, and pressing the nose of his gun into her thigh. </p><p>Carol considered for a moment everything she’d done in the name of survival and knew that there was no world in which her sins would be paid for in full. She thought first of the men on the kill floor. She thought of Lizzie in the grove. She thought of Karen and David. With which death had she passed the point of no return? </p><p>The gun pressed harder into her leg and Carol realised that it wasn’t a rhetorical question. Half a dozen walkers pressed against the iron-wrought fence, drifting towards the gate he'd left ajar. In a matter of minutes, she’d be gone. By the hand of the living or the dead. Whichever it was, it would be over soon.  </p><p>“I don’t think I ever will, so save us both the trouble and end this before they do.” He didn’t want to be eaten alive. Nobody did. He’d kill her and then he’d slink off to find somewhere quiet to lick his wounds and eventually, he’d succumb to hunger or exposure or something much more numbing than being eaten. </p><p>“You wanna die, don’t you?” This one’s rhetorical. Carol’s certain. She fears that he won’t let her now he knows she’s not afraid of it. She worries that he’ll find some crueller punishment to meet his ends. Death was too easy, too clean, for a woman like her, who'd done all the things she had. “You’re a survivor. Won’t die easy, I see that now. Negan would make somethin’ outta you. Maybe that’s the price you pay. You killed four of us, five once I’m dead. You can be my parting gift.”</p><p>Carol thinks of the pistol in her pocket. She’ll save the bullet. Bide her time until he’s distracted. She can’t risk missing her chance. There’s only one sure way out. </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Updates are going to be a bit out of sync while I get into the swing of a new fic but I'll try to figure out some sort of schedule eventually! Kudos and reviews are appreciated, I really am grateful for any feedback!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The perfect moment never came. Not when he fought back the walkers that were coming down on them and not once, he’d bound her hands behind her back. She was only relieved that he hadn’t frisked her. It felt like a safety blanket to know that when the time came, she had a way out.</p><p>Consciousness was getting harder to cling to, but she fought for it. If she let herself rest, she feared that she would wake up, cuffed to a hospital bed, recovering nicely. There were few things worse than death but letting herself be taken by the Saviors was on the list.</p><p>He didn’t bother to blindfold her. <em>A poor decision</em>, Carol thought. If by some cruel miracle, she survived, she would commit herself to being their downfall. If she made it through the night, there would be no more Carol. She would <em>become</em> Nancy from Montclair, who had killed four men on the road, and she’d burn them to the ground.</p><p>The man was swerving about on the road and sooner or later, he would’ve driven them straight off the road. A roadblock presented itself, jolting Carol to alertness. Her captor seemed unfazed. Relieved, even. Saviors. Carol wondered if this might be her chance.</p><p>“C’mon then, angel. Gotta show you to the boss while I still have breath,” he sneered, hobbling around the car and pulling her out onto the road. She almost tripped, dragging her feet as she tried to stay upright and leaning against him out of necessity. Nobody seemed fazed by the bleeding, restrained woman that he pulled in tow behind him. “Where’s Negan?”</p><p>With a flick of his rifle, a bearded stranger directed them forward. Carol decided that if she got the chance, she would shoot Negan instead. This man. This <em>leader. </em>She didn’t care what she would suffer if she could be the one to bring him down. He deserved it. More event than she did, she imagined.</p><p>“Roman! Damn!” a man barked out, wincing at the sight of Roman’s unsteady gait as he stalked around the pair of them, pausing at Carol’s back to untie her restraints, brushing his thumb against the inside of her wrist. “Who’s this?”</p><p>“She killed Jiro, and Miles and Paul and Benny,” Roman wheezed. “Name’s Nancy. Death don’t seem like enough for her.”</p><p>Now that he was stood in front of her, Negan seemed like nothing special. He wasn’t any scarier than Paula had been, or Jiro, or any of the people she’d fought before. He carried a baseball bat dressed in barbed wire and that was probably the scariest thing, but it felt like an elaborate performance and she couldn’t suspend her disbelief long enough to be truly frightened.</p><p>“Go home, Roman,” Negan commanded. His eyes were trailing down Carol’s form as he said it. “I’m keeping Nancy right here with me.”</p><p>Carol realised that this was her only chance. To kill herself <em>or </em>him. Her gun was drawn and pointed at Negan in a split second, and in another, a man she hadn’t even noticed behind her smacked it out of her hand as it discharged, putting her final bullet through the truck’s tire. The man that she can’t see has her arms pinned against her back and Negan is practically panting, hot breaths as he looks at Roman with an anger that she hadn’t been able to picture on his face. The rage feels almost familiar. He’s trying to hold onto his temper as he grabs Roman by the collar.</p><p>“You didn’t take her weapons before you brought her here?” Carol knows by the look in Negan’s eye that by dawn, Roman would have met an untimely demise. She didn’t have the energy to pity him. She barely had the energy to stand which became blatantly obvious as she stumbled back, falling into the arms of the man behind her. “Patch her up.”</p><p>When Carol woke, the sun had set. She was laid in the bed of the truck, under the cover of the darkening sky and a blanket that reeked of smoke. Her wounds had been dressed. They’d stripped her, she presumed, to treat her stomach wound and the bullet hole in her arm. Out here, in the open air where God and all his disciples could see her. When she was in less pain, she would be angry about that.</p><p>“<em>You </em>had my friend’s gun. I’d know that pistol anywhere, he etched his goddamn initial into the grip.” Negan’s voice announced his presence, though she couldn’t see him from her poor vantage. “Where would a woman like you, all alone at the end of the world, find T’s gun?”</p><p>Carol didn’t talk. Forced herself upright and grimaced as she did it, meeting his gaze with a coldness that had become second nature. She’d always been curious about the letter engraved in the gun, but she’d never imagined it would be her downfall. She wished she’d stolen a different gun, or that she’d left Alexandria empty-handed, or that she’d never left at all.</p><p>Everything had gone so dreadfully wrong. In the plan that she had laid out, she would travel far enough that they wouldn’t stumble upon her new home and she would set up somewhere and let the world forget all about her. She would have died eventually - a bite or hunger or sickness – but she wouldn’t have been forced to make the decision for herself. She’d always craved the strength to take control of her own destiny, but it felt like giving up and she hadn’t been able to do that.</p><p>“We’ve got a little rendezvous with your buddies in a couple hours, I think I’ll let ‘em know that we’ve got somethin’ of theirs,” Negan said. “Roman told me about your little performance and honestly, I’m impressed. You get some more rest. I want you in prime condition for tonight.”</p><p>Carol wondered if she could make a run for it. She wasn’t restrained anymore. If she was armed, she wouldn’t think twice about it, but they’d already taken the gun and – she checked her belt – the knife too. There was no point in even trying without them.</p><p>If everyone at Alexandria found out she was here, she worried they’d be driven to act recklessly, and she didn’t want to be the cause of that. Her intention had been to simply disappear. She slipped away in the night and hoped that eventually they would forget she ever existed and that one day, much further down the line, she would forget about them too.</p><p>Laid in the bed of the truck, she sat watching their operation with a great curiosity. They would never let her go now. She had known as soon as Roman failed to blindfold her, and now, as Negan allowed her to observe his men at work, she would not be traded as a hostage. She was <em>theirs </em>now for as long as there was breath in her body. Her only saving grace was that it might be for long.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Carol was moved into one of the cars and driven, with her hands bound again, to a clearing in the forest. It was dark already and she wondered why Rick had agreed to such a meeting, it was only when they pulled up that she realised he’d had no clue at all.</p><p>From the car, she could see them all. Lined up in front of Negan. Knelt sullen on the floor. Maggie looked half dead and she wondered what was wrong with her. This was not a rendezvous and they had not been waiting patiently for an agreed-upon time, they had been staking out the inroad.  </p><p>The man guarding her made sure she knew that if she put a toe out of line, it was her friends’ who would pay the price for her mistake. She couldn’t hear anything properly with the windows up, but she could see by the look on Rick’s face that Negan was threatening him. She wasn’t entirely sure what has happened in the short hours since she left but the situation had escalated undeniably.</p><p>She watched from the car, restless like she had any power at all to diffuse the situation, and it was only when Negan’s bat – the weapon she had previously regarded as an unnecessary prop – cracked against Abraham’s skull. Once. Twice. It was only then that it dawned on her that she was witness to an execution.</p><p>Carol was trying hard to keep from crying because the only thing that could possibly make the situation worse was disobeying Negan’s orders. Negan would use any excuse, she imagined, to kill another of their number and so she bit her lip until she could taste blood.</p><p>The car door opened, and she was pulled out, startled as she was forced to her feet. The forest was so absolute in its quiet, like an amphitheatre chosen for its acoustics, and Carol wondered if Negan had chosen this place for just that reason.</p><p>“We picked up one of yours by accident, thought you might want her back. Pretty little thing by the name o’ Nancy,” Negan told the group, all slumped against the ground now, struggling to stay on their knees. Carol was delivered to Negan’s side like a FedEx parcel, right on time for her big, shock-inducing debut.</p><p>Daryl was the first to react, he was up from the floor and had landed a hit on Negan’s jaw by the time he was pulled back, pressed face-first into the ground even as he struggled. His reaction was so instinctive that Carol saw a flash of his younger self in the movement. All violent urges and no control over them. She’d almost met him halfway, poised to run into his arms just like he’d once run into hers.</p><p>Rick’s expression was lost something between relief and dread. Glenn let his lips curl just an inch at the sight of her, so hopelessly hopeful even after everything. Maggie wore the same slight smile, wincing through whatever sickness had overcome her. None of the others met her eye. What had she been expecting? She had not felt relief upon seeing them and so why would they return the favour? She had abandoned them all in their hour of need and Abraham was dead.</p><p>Negan launched into a speech that Carol couldn’t hear. She was too busy watching Daryl sprawl hopelessly under the weight of a man twice his size. Fear rose up inside of her and she could barely see straight, flicking her eye between the bat, already awash with blood, and Daryl’s head, set against the forest floor like some figurative chopping block. Tunnel vision blurred the edges of her sight and the dread is unlike anything she’d known before this moment.</p><p>Bad things were a part of life now, but Carol had always been blessed to learn of them second-hand. She hadn’t seen her daughter bit by walkers. She hadn’t watched Lori bleed out on the floor of the prison block. She’d yet to bear witness to any personal tragedy that wasn’t of her own design, not until she’d seen Abraham’s skull cave under the touch of the bat. It was the shock that kept her conscious as Negan regaled them.  </p><p>“Back to it!” Negan exclaimed, loud enough to pull her attention as he cracked his bat against Glenn’s skull and Carol couldn’t hold in the sob that broke from her lips. This is what she had been running from and it felt like in her failed attempt, her greatest fears had been brought closer than ever before. The shock nearly brought her to her knees but the desire to gut Negan and watch him bleed out slowly kept her upright.</p><p>Carol couldn’t even look at Glenn. He was still alive, she could hear his inhuman utterances, but her eyes were locked on Negan’s back. She’d never been so filled with rage. She’d never <em>wanted </em>to kill before and the feeling was like heartburn so intense she couldn’t catch her breath. She didn’t let her gaze flicker as he smashed the bat in a swing to rival Lou Gehrig’s. The sound - at once crunching and wet - was enough to make her nauseous with the swirling cocktail of feeling in her gut.</p><p>“Why don’t you catch up with your friends? The ones who still have their heads, anyway...” Negan suggested, shoving her in Daryl’s direction and watching her stumble, too drained to even think of running as she dropped to the floor. “I’ll be right be back.”</p><p>She wanted nothing more than to collapse into Daryl’s shoulder and let herself feel okay for just a fraction of a second, but her mind was awash with feelings that his touch would fail to numb. Glenn’s blood had run across the ground and soon, Tara would be kneeling it. Saviors still circled them like vultures, watching their every move. If she let herself be anything but angry, she would never get up from the spot that she had fallen to.</p><p>In the blink of an eye, they were at war again. After the Governor fell. After Terminus was destroyed. After they made it to Alexandria, she figured she’d have a little time to remember who she was when she wasn’t pointing a gun, but enemies kept on coming like some deluded Whack-A-Mole game. First the Wolves, now the Saviors. She’d run in hopes that she could turn a blind eye to their crimes but now, after what she had seen tonight, she wouldn’t rest until they were dead.</p><p>Negan grabbed Rick by his collar and dragged him into the RV, sparing her one last glance as he offered a parting threat that barely touched her. She wasn’t afraid of him anymore. Fear was not an emotion that had ever gotten her anything and when she looked at him, she saw only somebody that she could kill. Somebody that <em>would </em>kill and if God was good, if God had any sway in the happenings of this world that seemed to have fallen under Satan’s rule, then he would be her final kill.  </p><p>She would find the peace that she had set out in search of. The journey would be longer, and she would face it even more broken than she already was. There’d be nothing left of <em>Carol Peletier </em>by the time she was free, but she’d never much cared for that person anyway. It would be no great loss. Carol would know peace only once Negan’s heart stopped beating.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There was a deafening silence tempered only by Maggie’s wavering breaths as she cried for her now dead husband. Nobody else had made a noise since Rick was pulled into the RV and driven away. Carol didn’t think that she was capable of speaking either until she was at Daryl’s side, whispering against his ear. Her voice didn’t sound like her own, so rattling that it seemed inhuman.  </p><p>“Don’t give them my name,” she pleaded softly. “I don’t care if he guts me, but I want Carol to die with <em>you, </em>with Alexandria, where he can’t touch me. Do that for me. Let him have Nancy instead.”</p><p>Nancy didn’t care whether she lived or died. Nancy didn’t have a family to get back to. Nancy didn’t have people that she loved. Nancy didn’t have hopes or fears, she just had her God. Nancy would die and she’d go to a heaven where she had nobody that she hoped to reunite with and there’d be no-one left alive to mourn her.</p><p>Daryl made no reaction, and she thought perhaps he was too distracted to hear her words. His hand reached out to cover her own and she tried not to snatch her fingers away from him, tried to let herself <em>feel </em>the exquisite agony of knowing the safety of his touch when it would be taken away from her any minute now.</p><p>His jaw was taught with unsaid words. Carol could see it in his stiff posture and his determined gaze, locked on the ground in front of him, Glenn’s blood seeping into the dirt. Every impulse told Daryl that he could fight his way out of this, and he was resisting the urge to try. He’d get them all killed and have nothing to show for it.</p><p><em>This isn’t his fight, </em>Carol told herself. Negan would keep her hostage, of that she was almost sure, and she would have the best chance to kill him. Inside his own walls, where he thought he was untouchable, that’s where she would finish this. He was never going to give her back to them, not today, when his mood was so ungiving, and she wasn’t going to waste her hope on something so implausible.</p><p>Time passed and nobody paid it any mind. They sat there waiting patiently for the return of one leader or the other. Carol tried to convince herself that Rick was safe, because why wouldn’t Negan want to make a show out of killing their leader too, but there was no predicting the actions of a psychopath. As soon as she calmed herself for a moment, she was reminded of the bodies of their friends and grew even angrier than before.</p><p>Maggie was barely keeping herself up. It wasn’t clear whether it was the grief or whatever cruel affliction burdened her. Her body and her mind had formed an unlikely allegiance against her, and death seemed nearer somehow than life. All Carol wanted when she looked at Maggie was to take her home and nurse her back to health.</p><p>It was an unbearable stretch between the RV’s return and Rick’s tumble out of its door. If Carol hadn’t painted such a gruesome picture in her mind, the wait might have worried her. The sight of Rick, alive and well, was enough to drop the tension in her shoulders and for one foolish moment, she thought the ordeal might be over.</p><p>“Here we are! Lemme ask you somethin’, Rick. You even know what that little trip was about?” Negan’s words sounded like a foreign language that Carol couldn’t wrap her head around without absolute concentration. The performance was all to make them fear him, or respect him, or feel something when they looked at him but when Carol set her eyes on him, she saw nothing but a target. “Get some guns to the back of their heads.”</p><p>It was there, poised in the air waiting to do exactly the thing it was made for, and Carol didn’t need to look to be sure of that. The feeling of a gun on you was much like somebody watching you; even without proof, you could be absolutely certain.</p><p>Carl, pinned against the ground, prepared like a prime rib to be chopped at Negan’s pleasure should’ve shocked Carol more. It hurt her, and it angered her, and it made her want to launch herself at Negan, but she was not shocked. At some point along the way, atrocities had ceased to be shocking at all. Kindness was the thing that she had stopped expecting.</p><p>The sun was up and still, Negan persisted. Rick was in a state unlike any of their number had truly seen. His reaction to Lori’s death paled in comparison. The noises he produced were primal cries and as he braced himself to mutilate his own son, he barely seemed human at all. He shattered in a way that Carol hadn’t imagined him capable of, pledging himself to Negan in absolute sincerity, and it made her nauseous. She’d gone to such lengths to protect those she loved, but when other people did the things that she had, it made her stomach churn.</p><p> “Today was a productive damn day!” Still, Negan went on with his bravado like a ringmaster trying to keep the audience engaged. “We’re gonna keep a hold of this one for you.”</p><p>Carol didn’t realise he was talking about her until she was being hoisted up to a standing position and dragged away. He was always going to keep her, no matter how the night played out, and she was glad that it was her over someone else. If all she could do with the rest of her pathetic excuse for a life was keep Negan occupied while Alexandria braced itself for a war, she would be satisfied with her role.</p><p>“You can have your mutt back,” she heard Negan say as she was loaded into a car. “He’s too wild for my taste anyway.”</p><p>Daryl was safe, for now at least. That was something. Maggie would be okay, she had to tell herself that. Michonne and Rosita and Sasha were all going to be fine. Carl was going to be fine. Rick would figure it all out. They had the strength of Alexandria at their backs and once everything was finished, <em>they </em>would be alright. She clung to that like the only good thing left in the world.</p><p>Negan might tear her to shreds. She might never see sunlight again. There were hundreds of dreadful possibilities but so long as they were safe, she could endure it. That’s why she’d left in the first place, wasn’t it? So that she could convince herself that they were safe somewhere without her. So that she could let the world forget about her and hope that she forgot it too.</p><p>In a pit in the ground, or in some corrugated iron jail, whatever hellish place Negan devised to house her, she could fall into the shadows and make her peace. She could let herself give up, at least a little, and know that fighting harder would change nothing.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Pulled away out of sight again like a magic trick. It made Daryl’s bones ache. It was a physical exertion not to bolt after her. There was nobody to restrain him anymore - they’d loosened their hold and eventually released him entirely – so he was doing the hard work himself.</p><p>“I <em>like </em>her,” Negan confessed with a shit-eating grin once Carol was out of earshot, and if Daryl wasn’t so tired, he would have lunged at him. “Don’t worry yourselves over her. Maybe one day she’ll be shooting you for me!”</p><p>The thought of that was enough to break him. She never would, not willingly, but a man like that could drive you mad quickly. He could already picture the sight of her, sullen as she followed behind Negan like an obedient dog. There was so little left of the woman that he’d met in the quarry but there were glimmers sometimes that made him think she was struggling more than she’d admit to.</p><p>Negan leaft them there to wallow in their grief and one by one, the vehicles pulled away and they were left with nothing but each other and their rage. That, and two dead bodies to carry home.</p><p>Harsh daylight forced its way through the trees and there was no way to pretend it was some nightmare anymore. If it was, they weren’t going to wake up any time soon. Everyone remained in a stunned silence for what felt like days but eventually, Maggie forced her way up onto her feet.</p><p>Daryl was quick in his movement, coming to her side and holding her up like it was the only purpose he had in the world. Rick begged her to sit back down but there was no soothing her while she could still see her husband’s brain matter spread over the floor like fruit conserve.</p><p>“We need to go get ready,” Maggie wheezed out, one misstep from collapse.</p><p>He wished he could take it back. That’s all he thought when he looked at her now. If he’d just get a handle on his anger, if he’d just taken a deep breath and resisted the impulse, Glenn would still be here. Carol might be with them right now, stood at his side. It all could’ve gone a lot easier if he’d just been less of a fool.</p><p>“Maggie, I’ve got this,” Daryl grunted, trying to hand her off to Rick gently. “Go home, get well, this doesn’t have to be you.” </p><p>Nobody seemed ready to move. Rosita. Impetuous, passionate, hot-headed Rosita just sat motionless. Everyone remained in their kneeling positions, slumped now, as if an altar has been erected for their use. Even Carl seemed resigned to their fate in that moment. The fight had been burned out of them.</p><p>Daryl would go alone if he had to. He would find Negan and he would walk through a sea of bullets if it meant that he could put a knife through that bastard’s eye before the life leaked out of him. The rest of it might have been enough to send Daryl on a suicide mission – killing Abraham, killing Glenn, killing Denise – but taking Carol was the final straw somehow. If he’d had any hold on his temper before, he’d lost his grip.</p><p>He was torn in two, wanting to stay as close to them as he could and knowing that he needed to go off alone to finish this. The fear is what held him back. Fear that he’d never see any of them again. Fear that going in, all guns blazing, might get Carol killed too. It dawned on him that this was the last place they were all alive together. It makes sense but he hadn’t considered it yet, that the last time they were all in one place was right here under the trees.</p><p>Technically speaking, Abraham died before Carol arrived, but she was there, watching from the wings. It was obvious from the look in her eye. Holding it together the way that she always forced herself to. He’d seen it and that’s all he’d wanted when he ran in her direction. Negan just got in his way. All he wanted was to let her fall apart for a moment.</p><p>Maggie had broken in Michonne’s arms by now, collapsed into them and let herself be half carried to the car. Daryl watched after them, heart sore with the idea of leaving them to handle it without him, but every second Carol was in Negan’s custody brought him a little closer to insanity.</p><p>“Daryl, not today,” Rick insisted, grabbing him by the shoulders and forcing him to make eye contact. “Today, we bury our dead. Tomorrow, we figure out what’s next. Not today.”</p><p>There was no fight left in him to disagree. He nodded. The bodies were loaded up and it hit Daryl square in the gut that these bodies were his friends. A few hours ago, they had worn familiar faces and now they were sacks of flesh that only made him angry when he glanced at them.</p><p>The litany of emotion was nothing that he hadn’t faced a hundred times before. They’d lost so much. They knew more dead people than living these days. It all stacked up inside of him and he wished that he had the energy to push it down, but he was exhausted. They all were.</p><p>Guilt joined the roster pretty quickly. Daryl realised that Maggie had lost her husband, that Rosita and Sasha had lost the man they loved, and he sat there with a sourpuss about a woman he had no claim to. A woman who was alive, anyway. What right did he have to sit there and mope around?  </p><p>“We’ll get her back,” Rick said but his wavering tone didn’t inspire confidence. Daryl wished that he could simply have faith that things would work out, but they never had before. Everybody else was dead already, so why wouldn’t Carol be the next to join that list? Death was a neater end than most, neater than the alternative Negan had teased, but he didn’t know how to live in a world without her.</p><p>He’d tried. He’d tried after he found Merle, and he’d tried again after Rick had banished her, but he’d always come up short.  Daryl didn’t know who to be, he’d always needed somebody to tell him that or give him purpose and, in her absence, he had none but getting her back.</p>
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<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She wasn’t blindfolded. She took that as a bad sign. A sign that they had no intentions of letting her go. When it had been just Roman, she had written it off as stupidity but now, with so many sets of eyes on her, she knew that the decision to make no secret of her location was a statement of intent.</p><p>That didn’t scare her very much. She had spent most of her life bound in one seemingly endless confinement or the next. There were worse things than being locked up by people you hated and made to feel worthless. She’d experienced things far worse than that.</p><p>It wasn’t the degradation that would get her. It wasn’t the poor conditions in which she would be kept, or the cruel words which would become their own language, or the way she would be held away from everyone she loved most. It was the fact that Negan would pretend to be kind. They always did. Men like him thought they were doing you a favour by taking you under their wing as if their shadow was a welcome repose.</p><p>The Sanctuary was just as she’d imagined. Hollow. Lifeless, even with so dense a population. Carol thought of T-Dog then, for the first time in years, and when she looked at this place, she saw a tomb. In the faces of the Saviors that had brought her here; she saw nothing. Robotic, empty, trudging through life simply because to die would be to make a decision.</p><p>“I’ll give you the grand tour!” Negan exclaimed with a genuine enthusiasm that made her skin crawl. “You’ll feel right at home here, everybody does.”</p><p>As he carted her through the halls, Carol took note only of what she deemed important. She supposed none of it mattered much if he was so readily trusting her with the information, but he was cocky. That was the first thing she’d thought when she’d seen him, and it was the only fact that she didn’t doubt. Negan believed that he ruled the world and so he struggled to conceive of a betrayal, even from one so outright in her hatred of him.</p><p>She didn’t pay attention to the people he introduced her to. She didn’t pay attention to his words at all in truth. As they walked, Carol scoped out the entire building for an attack or for an escape, whichever proved more promising with each new room they entered. These people didn’t matter to her, they were just people who’d gotten lucky (or unlucky, depending on how you looked at it) and were still alive.</p><p>“Ladies,” Negan greeted as she ushered Carol into a suite that looked like something out of the old world. Prettier and better kept than the rest of the building and when she saw its inhabitants, she understood why. “Nancy, these are my…wives. I’ll let y’all get introduced. Gotta speak to a man about a semi-automatic rifle.”</p><p>The women were all dressed in slim-fitting black dresses. It was like a funeral congregation of the Stepford Wives and Carol felt oddly out of place. Since the world went to hell, she’d had little time to consider where she fit into the social hierarchy. She was a childless widow but it was the end of the world, so that complicated things at least a little.</p><p>“I’m Tanya,” one of the women offered up, reaching out a hand. “We don’t bite. Where’d he pick you up?”</p><p>Carol didn’t answer. Didn’t shake the woman’s bony hand either. Didn’t want to acknowledge her presence.</p><p>“You’re bleeding through your shirt,” another of the group stated, approaching Carol with a smile. “I was in nursing school before the turn. It’s me or Dr Pellman, and <em>he </em>can’t keep his hands to himself at the best of times.”</p><p>Whoever had patched her up in her sleep on the road had done a poor job. It had kept her alive, but she knew that it would get infected if she didn’t accept the help. She steeled herself against the woman, unbuttoning a shirt that wasn’t hers and avoiding eye contact as the stranger approached her.</p><p>Carol learned all of their names as she was stitched up properly, standing awkwardly after a pointed refusal to take a seat. She noticed the way they were with one another, took note of the hierarchy that had formed among their number, and was careful to remember the weak points that she would press upon later.</p><p>The suite was a gilded cage. All of the wives spent their days there and were permitted to leave only for their work or if Negan required them elsewhere. <em>This </em>was what she feared most, and she was glad to think that her jail would at least look like one too. She wouldn’t fall for his tricks as these women had, not even given all the time in the world.</p><p>When he returned, everyone seemed to straighten their backs. It was a relief to know that they weren’t entirely under his spell. When she looked at them, she saw no glimpse of the women they had been before. It had made her think that perhaps there was nothing left of those women.</p><p>“I hope we can be friends, Nancy, but you have to earn my trust first,” Negan reasoned as he led her through the corridors to a long hallway of cells, one after another, typecast by their heavy metal doors. “If you’re not comfortable here, please make sure to tell me and I’ll do what I can for you.”</p><p>The cell was better furnished than she’d imagined. There was a mattress on the cement floor with a blanket. A bare lightbulb hung from the ceiling and illuminated the dingy room in a weak yellow glow. It was small but her intentions didn’t extend far beyond staring into space and plotting her captor’s demise.</p><p>“I don’t want us to be enemies, Nancy,” Negan offered as he stood in the doorway, lips pulled into a lopsided smile.</p><p>“Maybe you should’ve thought of that before you killed two of my friends while I was watching,” Carol sneered. Slowly but surely, her resistance would fade, and she would grow more docile. She would get in the punches where she could and hope that he’d give up before she did.  “I’ll get some rest now, I think.”</p><p>Wherever the defiant streak came from, she was glad to have it as she set herself down on the mattress and turned her back on him. It was probably an awful idea. it would likely spark anger in him like what she had seen last night but she’d go crazy without her little acts of rebellion to tide her over. She shut her eyes and heard the door slam shut.</p>
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<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There was no natural light in the cell. No windows. No way to know whether it was night or day. Carol felt the exhaustion cling to her and figured she hadn’t slept more than a few hours. She couldn’t be certain, and she wouldn’t let herself be lulled into a false sense of security. Stay sharp, stay focused, stay in control. It was the only chance she had of getting out of here.</p><p>A ceiling painted with tiny cracks. Non-descript stone walls. Nothing to garner information from. She continued looking though, as if she might be spared her own thoughts if she searched hard enough. Her efforts were to no avail. The others were out there somewhere. Glenn and Abraham were probably in the ground already. Concern for them roiled in her chest.</p><p>The door opened and light from the corridor spilled into the room. She saw Lucille hanging at his side and didn’t bother to make the journey to his face. He wasn’t alone. Whoever had accompanied him was irrelevant, she supposed, and she was too tired to make an effort unless she was forced to.</p><p>Sitting up was enough exertion with a bullet wound in her arm and a stab wound in her gut. They were itching already. It was good that they were healing but she’d go insane without anything to take her mind off it. Recovering in this dull isolation would send her mad.</p><p>“Nancy, this is Duke,” Negan introduced, unfazed by her lack of interest. “He saw you earlier and thought <em>maybe </em>you two could get to know each other a little better, so he’s gonna be bringing you your meals.”</p><p>It hadn’t dawned on her that he would palm the task off onto somebody else. It made complete sense. Why would he sully himself with the task of beating her into submission when he could watch someone more enthusiastic do the job? She wasn’t afraid of being beaten by men she hated, nor was she afraid of having sex with them. Aside from Tobin, it was all she’d ever known.</p><p>She looked up at him then. His salt-and-pepper beard would scratch her skin. The softness that had come with age would press down on top of her until she couldn’t breathe anymore. His hands were big enough to circle her wrists with room to spare. Carol took stock of the man who would be the first of many, she imagined, and she felt strangely disappointed that he wasn’t more menacing.</p><p>“Duke, put down the plate,” Negan commanded. “Leave us alone. I need to speak to Nancy. You’ll see her in the morning for breakfast.”</p><p> The robotic obedience still irked her. Duke acted without question, setting down a cafeteria tray on the floor and leaving the cell. All of them were as compliant as Duke she’d noticed, and she thought, no wonder Negan believes that he is king in this world.</p><p>Carol found herself confused for a moment. She had long since abandoned the notion of being certain of anything but in this, Negan’s intentions had been clear. She had known without hesitation what would happen here, and she had braced herself for it. Still, he had sent Duke away and she couldn’t understand that.</p><p>“He wants to claim you as his. He wants to push you down into that mattress and rip your clothes off and have his way with you. That’s what <em>he </em>wants, but this isn’t his world,” Negan crouched so that he was at her level, his face close to hers as he spoke. “It’s my world, Nancy. He doesn’t touch you unless I say he can and I’m not gonna do that. If you stay on my good side, and that’s where you are right now, Nancy, then I can keep you safe from them. All of them. Every single one who wants a piece of you…but they can’t touch you without my say so.”</p><p>Carol kicked herself for not seeing it straight away. The tenderness he tried with her. The way he’d shown her around and introduced her to his goddamn concubines. The entire charade had been leading up to this and she’d been stupid not to see it.</p><p>She’d been wrong to think he’d let anyone else touch her. Negan was going to rape her – because no-one else had earned the right to have her yet - and she was going to lie there and take it. He’d be the first. Over time, she would become a commodity that he handed out to his favourites, to those who had earned favours, to those who ‘deserved a treat’. But for now, she was his to monopolise.</p><p>If it was the way to make him trust her then she would do it, would indulge him even, just enough to make him think that she was falling for his charm. She’d draw him in close and then she’d kill him stone dead. In her mind, she thought of the advice she had given to Andrea at the prison all those years ago. It had been a smart idea then and it was a smart idea now. She figured that she might as well make the most of a bad situation.</p><p>Except he doesn’t. He pats her on the knee and stands and leaves. The door shut behind him with a thud and she was back in the low glow of the lightbulb. If there was any logic to the sequence of events, she couldn’t recognise it. Carol resigned herself to confusion and laid back down.</p><p>She couldn’t sleep away the days forever. She’d lose her sense of time completely. Sleeping felt like the easy way out. As long as she wasn’t conscious, Carol could forget where she was and pretend that she was somewhere happier. It was a trap. No one can control their dreams and letting yourself drown in sleep only woke you up to a world you’d lost control of too.</p><p>When Carol woke again, the cell was in total darkness. She reached out cautiously for the tray of now-cold food. Bread. Carrots. Was that chicken? Without cutlery, she felt like a savage, feasting with her fingers and letting herself abandon what little decorum she still had. She drank the water they’d left her, careful to conserve some for later, and fell back against the mattress.</p><p>At least they were feeding her, she thought. What they saw in Nancy from Montclair wasn’t clear, but she was happy to maintain the façade if it kept her belly full.</p><p>Nancy from Montclair wanted to end Negan’s life. They had that in common. It wouldn’t be difficult to become someone else when who she really was already seemed a world away. She <em>was </em>Nancy, and Nancy got fed and she had a mattress to sleep on and she had a room of her own in this hellhole. Nancy had a purpose in this world and that was more than enough to keep her going.</p><p>She remembered what she’d said to Daryl. The words had meant more than she’d known at the time, but it was the only way that she would make it out of this place alive. Carol was dead. She’d died on that road with those Saviors and been burned to ash. There was nothing left of her, and in her place stood someone new.</p>
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<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It hadn’t been much of a funeral. They had sat in Rick’s living room with an angry silence hanging over them. Maggie and Sasha weren’t there. It felt like a redundant act. Even Rosita was too angry to be upset now that the realisation had settled in.  </p><p>Rick had said some empty words about the sacrifices that had been made to get them all to this moment and Daryl considered knocking him out just to get him to stop talking. In a strange way, this frightened and immovable version of Rick reminded him of the delusional farmer from the days at the prison. It was time to make a plan and Rick seemed unenthusiastic.  </p><p>If Daryl wasn’t already sick of playing house in Alexandria and pretending the world wasn’t burning, watching everyone sit around and grieve like it might change something was the final straw. </p><p>“We need to figure out our next step,” Daryl stated, drawing the room’s attention to him. He met Rick’s gaze, silently asking him to remember the role he’d taken on and the promises he’d made. </p><p>“He has Carol. He has an army. He has a force we can’t beat, Daryl, and we’d only lose more people tryin’. We have to wait this out, follow his rules, there’s no alternative.” The words were shy. Even Rick didn’t want to admit it aloud. They’ve never given up, not since the turn, they’ve never even questioned whether it was worth the fight, but this changes everything. </p><p>“You remember what happened last time we let ourselves be captured by a bunch of psychopaths, Rick? It was Carol who saved our asses. But she <em>can’t </em>save us now, but Negan has her. Negan took her right in front of our eyes, and we need to get her back.”</p><p>What he’s saying sounds unreasonable and he knows it. Daryl doesn’t care about being reasonable anymore, he doesn’t care about collateral damage and he doesn’t care about the risk to his own life. It’s the most selfish that he’s ever let himself be but it’s <em>Carol. </em>Carol who pulled him back from the brink after Beth and who made him feel like he was worth caring about and who saved all of their lives at Terminus. Nothing feels important compared with her.</p><p>“She abandoned us in our hour of need.” Eugene stated as if Daryl was unaware of the fact that she’d left them. “Off into the night, split like a banana, no further communique. It would not be in our best interest to waste resources. We have bigger proverbial fish to fry.” </p><p>Daryl’s hand was wrapped around the bastard’s throat before he could continue talking. He floundered like the aforementioned fish under Daryl’s hold, startled and afraid. He’d deserved it for speaking about Carol like some disposable asset. </p><p>“DARYL!” Rick snapped, sending daggers in Daryl’s direction. “It’s true. That’s <em>not </em>the way I would’ve put it, and it doesn’t mean we’re leaving her there, but she left because she didn’t want to kill for us. It’s too big of a risk for us to start a war for her.” </p><p>It hit Daryl suddenly. The realisation that he was alone in his intentions smacked into him like a freight truck. He looked to Michonne for support and found only her downcast resolve. Eugene wormed his way out of Daryl’s loosened grip and fled to the other side of the room.  </p><p>The impossibilities didn’t escape him. A list of reasons longer than he could write stood between <em>her </em>and them. He didn’t expect anybody to go in all guns blazing. A war wasn’t a conceivable idea. Outright conflict would put everything they had on the line. It only sickened him to see how readily they gave up on one of their own. If it was him they’d taken, or Maggie, or if he’d taken Glenn alive, would they have relinquished their hope so easily?</p><p>“We have to bide our time,” Aaron insisted. “We’re gonna get her back. We’re gonna get her and we’ll take Negan’s head too while we’re there. This isn’t letting go, it’s holding on." </p><p>Being around them, all made it worse somehow. Every time he looked at any of them, he just saw her. Without her, he would’ve left them all a long time ago. He’d be out on his own, or coasting with a bunch of strangers he didn’t care about, or he’d be dead. Whichever possibility he entertained, it made him glad to have chosen <em>right </em>at the fork in the road. </p><p>It hadn’t been just one choice in truth. He’d been choosing them for years now. At the quarry, at the farm, at the prison, on the road. Every time he’d considered whether being alone would be easier and he’d concluded that it would be, but he’d stayed anyway. Maybe for Lil’ Asskicker, maybe for Carol, maybe for himself. </p><p>“Goin’ out,” Daryl bit out as he headed for the front door, making a beeline for the gate. Alexandria already felt like a prison dressed in paisley, but without her, it only seemed worse. In the real world, he was able to remember what normality felt like. Normality meaning the absurdist nightmare that had <em>become </em>their reality rather than the old world he’d been happy to leave behind. </p><p>Spencer let him go. The look on his face must have announced to everyone in one-hundred-yard radius that it wasn’t worth the argument. He headed out into the forest on foot, chasing after nothing in particular. He wasn’t even armed, he realised suddenly and felt like an idiot for taking the risk, but he’d needed to <em>go. </em>Every second spent behind Alexandria’s walls pulled him further and further down the rabbit hole. He couldn’t take it, not after such a harsh reminder that the real world was still out there with a vengeance. </p><p>Carol would’ve calmed him down. Carol would’ve reasoned with him and made him see sense. If Carol was here, he would’ve accepted what she said even if he didn’t like it and he would’ve sat there in Rick’s living room and let himself grieve the boy he’d known for half a decade now. If Carol was here, he’d have no reason to rush into a losing battle. </p><p>He said her name more now than he ever did before. There were no more <em>shes </em>or <em>hers </em>in his thoughts. Carol had begged him to let her die with them and never let Negan find out who she was, but Carol wasn’t dying. Not while Daryl had breath in his lungs. She wasn’t dying in any way, metaphorical or literal. </p><p> </p>
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<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>After a terse interaction with her new stalker at breakfast, she forced herself up and out of the bed. All she could do was the pace three strides back and forth, but it was better than laying there and wasting away. Every day since she arrived – four days if her mealtimes were to be trusted – she forced herself to pace the entire time between breakfast and lunch simply to fill the time.  </p><p>It was probably her fiftieth pass when she noticed the light seeping in from under the door. It was brighter than usual. The door wasn’t locked. It wasn’t even shutproperly. She wondered what had possessed God to offer such an interminable miracle up. </p><p>There was no time to think about it. She pushed open the door and squinted as sunlight hit her fully for the first time in days. There was no guard stationed in the corridor. Nobody had the manpower to station internal guards, she figured. Getting out of the cell was one thing but getting out of the compound would be another challenge entirely. </p><p>She made it to a disused fire exit that she’d taken note of during her tour. There wasn’t a soul around. In retrospect, it was suspicious, but at the time, she was too grateful to consider it. The fresh air felt like heaven after four nights in the stuffy damp air of her cell, but she didn’t pause to appreciate it. </p><p>There were people going about their days but none of them paid her any mind. She was still in normal clothes. They haven’t dressed her up in a jumpsuit, nor stripped her bare, so blending in was easy. She made it across the courtyard without drawing any attention to herself and saw a straight shot to the gate. She’d have to kill the two men on watch but that was it.  Two deaths after everything she’d done felt like a fair price to pay.  </p><p>His whistle sounded through the air like a siren wailing. She knew at once what this was. Somewhere, just below the surface, the thought had been sat since the second she noticed the door left ajar. It was a set up and she had played right into his hands. </p><p> “Nancy, going somewhere?” No sooner does she hear his voice than she sees him, stepping out of the shadows where he has watched the whole scene unfold. </p><p>Without thought, she snatched hold of a man she’s never seen before and set her arm against his throat. It felt unnatural. Normally it’d be a gun to the head or a knife to the jugular, but she was unarmed, so the only power she had was the strength God had given her. It wasn’t the first time she’d snapped a neck. More than one she’d been caught off guard by a walker and had nothing but her own force to protect her. A snap of the neck followed by a stomp to the skull did the job just fine.  </p><p>Negan laughed. A hearty laugh that rattled her bones. She could hear the quivering breaths of the man held against her chest. Negan was unworried by the momentary shift in power. There was no way for her to gain a real advantage here in the lion’s den and she was preying upon his humanity which she knew was a useless endeavour. </p><p>“Let me run, or kill me right here, or figure out something new to do with me,” she commanded as she twisted the man’s head just enough to cause discomfort. “I’m not going back into that cell.” </p><p>The man was whimpering like a child and she didn’t have to look at his face to know that there were tears in his eyes. His great leader, the man who’d <em>saved </em>him, wasn’t coming to his rescue and it was like watching a child learn that Santa Claus was made up, if Santa Claus was your father and had been lying to you about everything that mattered since the day you were born. </p><p>“It’d be an awful shame for you to snap David’s neck over nothing. I can get you a nicer room. I can get you a stack of books, maybe some music, whatever you want, Nance. I told you to talk to me if you weren’t happy. So, let’s talk.”   </p><p>She dropped David. He fell away from her and scampered to the safety of Negan’s silent entourage. Circling her like crows. It made sense to her then, why they all called themselves Negan. They weren’t <em>people, </em>they weren’t even soldiers, they were just limbs, extensions of something bigger than themselves and more important. Nothing independent or impulsive, just obedient on every level. </p><p>“Kill him if you like. He won’t mind too much. His wife might be upset but she’ll get over it. Here, have my knife,” Negan said as he tossed a small blade towards her feet gently. “Kill whoever you want. It won’t get you anywhere, but it might make you feel better.” </p><p>She still hadn’t spoken. Every time she heard her own voice, it sounded like Carol and it was harder to forget who she was. The sound of her own voice reminded her that Nancy was a figment of her imagination and she <em>had </em>to be Nancy. She’d been whispering to herself in her cell with a rich Jersey accent and hoping it would stick.  </p><p>“C’mon, Nance. Nothing like a knife to the eyeball to get the day started. Pick one, I don’t mind which. Otherwise, all of this was for nothing and that’d be an awful shame,” Negan chastised, watching her with a smirk. </p><p> She cringed. It’d been a long time since she’d allowed a man to make her feel small, but he didn’t seem to need her permission. Eleanor Roosevelt had lied. <em>No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. </em>She’d chanted it in her head as if by saying it enough it would become true. Eleanor Roosevelt wasn’t dealing with men like Negan. </p><p>Negan watched her kick the blade back towards him, skitter across the concrete and land a couple of feet in front of him. She could’ve killed half his men and it would have got her nowhere. She could kill every man, woman and child but she would never get near Negan and <em>he </em>was the only that mattered. </p><p>Wordlessly, she walked back towards the fire exit, slipping between the Saviors who circled her, unfazed by their weapons. Negan followed her, a few paces behind, letting her maintain the notion of independence as she strode back to her cell. </p><p>“We could rule the world. You and me. Screw the rest of these jackasses. Everyone’s expendable…except for us.” Negan’s voice echoed off the walls and she wondered what he saw when he looked at her. In some sick way, she realised that he might see more in her than Rick ever did, though of course she knew it was performed.  Still, Nancy was something that he <em>wanted </em>something from, and Rick had never needed anything from her. It’d always been her needing him, needing all of them to take care of her one way or another. </p><p>Everything in the new world revolved around sex and death. You either killed someone or you owned them in the most biblical sense. To put a man in his place, you took his wife. To put a woman in her place, you<em> made</em> her your wife. She didn’t think he’d go so far as to ‘marry’ her - whatever marriage was anymore – but he’d remind her what it was to live for the approval of a man you despised.</p><p> He couldn’t kill her. Or rather he could, but he didn’t want to. Nancy was an asset. There was no point throwing away valuable items when they could be made use of. She wasn’t sure what he would do next, she wasn’t even sure what he was doing right now in truth. His intentions were hard to figure out, but she had all the time in the world to ponder them. </p><p>Negan left her alone in her cell. He didn’t force her to make conversation or even endure his company, he simply left her to wallow in peace. </p>
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<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Chapter 10</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>big ole content warning for sexual violence and attempted rape on this chapter, if you want to skip. i'll put a chapter summary at the beginning of chapter 11 so you don't miss anything.</p>
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    <p>Duke continued to deliver her meals and each time, he would make a sordid comment. They grew worse as the days passed. Explicit to the point of making her wince. All crude and unnecessary and trying to wind her up. She figured that she’d been frustrated too if there was a carrot dangled in front of her. </p><p>It was evening. Later than he normally came, she suspected, though there was no way of being sure. Perhaps she should ask for a clock, or a watch, or a room with a window. Negan would’ve given it to her. She had learned over the past week that he would give her anything if she asked. She now had three books at her bedside, and a pillow, and she was given plastic cutlery with each meal. </p><p>Today, something was different. Duke didn’t put down the tray. Duke didn’t speak to her. Duke shut the door behind him, and she knew what was coming. She knew what this way and she could tell by his antsy gestures that it wasn’t on the boss’ orders. It was a ‘get-in, get-out, and pray she’s too afraid to tell anybody’ situation. </p><p>Even as he pushed her back into the mattress and pinned her hands over her head, she knew he would regret this later. He might get what he wanted. It was unlikely but even if he did, Negan would kill him for it. She still struggled to fathom just how easily men were led by their own lust.  </p><p>He hadn’t done this before. She could tell by how excited he got like a kid stealing candy. His hands were clammy, wrapped around her wrists as she pressed his weight down into her. Hard, wet kisses across her jaw and neck as he awkwardly reached between them and popped the button on her pants. </p><p>“You want this, don’t you, Nancy. I’ve seen how you look at me.” His words, hissed through his teeth, made her shiver. She writhed around underneath him, trying to get loose, and when her hip ground against his in just the right way, he dropped his hand to the mattress beside her, holding himself up as he pulled himself free of his jeans. </p><p>Her hands were free now. She could’ve gone for his throat or punched him and hoped that it landed right. It wasn’t worth the risk. There was only one sure way to stop him in his tracks.  </p><p>It was shrivelled and unnaturally pink and she might’ve retched at the sight of it if she hadn’t been preoccupied. She did it without hesitating. She moved fast and pulled harder when she felt the natural resistance of skin about to tear. Beneath her hand, it snapped with more force than she’d expected, tore as easily as a perfectly tender chicken leg. The noise was like a pop more than a tear, but it was loud enough to startle him. Duke hadn’t even realised what she was doing until her hand was slick with his blood.  </p><p>His blood was dripping down onto her pants and in passing, she thought that the stain would never come out. It took him a second to react. A still moment in which he just looked down and saw the chaos and waited for it to cease. The pain struck him suddenly and she saw the way he wilted. Enraged and emasculated by the very thought that she would dare to injure the most precious part of him. </p><p>“BITCH!” Duke sneered as the muscles in his neck flexed with the effort of not crying out as he flinched back from her. There was more blood than she’d imagined. Men weren’t likely to go blabbering about how much they suffered when their manhood was already under such direct threat, she supposed. The stories she had heard had downplayed it. </p><p>He left, slamming the door shut behind him but not bothering to lock it as he shoved himself back into his jeans and rushed off. She’d expect a slap, at the least, and a good beating at worst, but he’d hurried off so quickly. She wouldn’t tell Negan, not if he didn’t ask, but something told her that he’d find out anyway. </p><p>She swallowed down the bile that had risen in her throat and rebuttoned her pants. He’d barely laid a hand on her, but she felt unbelievable dirty. If she asked Negan for a shower, would he let her? Would he ask why? It wasn’t worth the risk. She knew what would happen if he found out what had transpired and she didn’t want to face that, not if she didn’t have to. </p><p>It would’ve been easy to do more damage. After the initial strike, it would’ve been easy to pin him down and beat him until his skull resembled Glenn’s. It wouldn’t have been easy to explain. Negan never would’ve questioned why and even if he did, he wouldn’t have cared. Everyone’s expendable. Nobody truly mattered to him and those who did were judged by what they had to offer him. Duke had nothing to offer, and even if he did, Nancy could offer him something unique. Her arsenal contained assets that nobody else could lay claim to. </p><p>Carol might have been more distraught but there was no Carol anymore. She was using that name less and less. Even in her own thoughts, she said Nancy in its place, as though she might make herself believe it. She needed to believe it. Carol couldn’t handle this. She wouldn’t get out of the other side of it, but Nancy would. </p><p>Duke didn’t bring her breakfast the next morning, nor did he bring her lunch, nor did he bring her dinner. She wondered what he’d told Negan. Not the truth, that was for sure, but he wasn’t here so he’d come up with some excuse. It was one of the wives who brought her food – Sherry, if she remembered her name right – and offered her wry smiles with each meal. </p><p>Nancy didn’t mind the slight change in routine. It gave her something to think about other than her inevitable fate. As she paced back and forth, she thought of Sherry and of the other wives. She wondered if they were happy, in some strange way, and if she could bring herself to be happy too, if she ran out of options. Nancy could make the best out of a bad situation, so she figured that she could make it work here if she had to.</p>
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<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Chapter 11</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It wasn’t until she was disturbed again once the lightbulb had been turned off that she realised the previous night’s antics had already been revealed. She knew the man who came for her. He was the one who’d pinned Daryl down in the clearing. She didn’t know his name, but she followed him without question.</p><p>The room was dark. She didn’t notice <em>that </em>so much as the absence of light but even through the large windows, there was nothing but the moon to illuminate the room. There was a long table with half a dozen unoccupied chairs lining it and at the far end of it sat Duke.</p><p>Negan was there too. He was wearing his signature grin and he had Lucille in his hand and it felt like some sort of intervention. They’d waited until it was dark and they’d smuggled her here and she didn’t know what she was supposed to think, but this couldn’t be good.</p><p>He knew. She was certain of that the moment she saw Duke. Sullen and haunted and looking for an excuse to leave. Nancy figured he deserved whatever came his way but instinctively, she pitied him. She let herself feel bad for him because there was no harm in it when the damage was already done.</p><p>“I want you to take this,” Negan began, handing her the small blade that he had tossed to her in the courtyard last week. “The Sanctuary does not harbour predators. We do what we must to survive but we are all equal here. We are <em>all </em>Negan. By hurting you, he hurt me, he hurt every single one of us and he has to pay for that.”</p><p>Nancy knew what he was asking, and she knew that she wouldn’t do it. She knew that she’d sooner die. Killing was a necessity and she wasn’t going to pretend otherwise but <em>this </em>was something else. Something optional. Something she could decide against.</p><p>“He isn’t worth it.” The words slip out, confused in their intonation like they got lost somewhere on the east coast. It isn’t a Jersey accent. Negan doesn’t even know about Montclair, nobody lived long enough to tell him that specific detail.  “It’s not like he can reoffend.”</p><p>His laugh almost scares her. It booms into the empty space and bounces off the furniture. Negan thought she was making a joke, but it was true. No doctor would waste resources trying to save a man’s dick at the end of the world. Duke was a write off and letting him live wasn’t doing anyone any harm.</p><p>“He’s gonna die tonight, Nancy. <em>You </em>can do it, or we can stand here and watch Dwight do it. I’ve got nowhere to be tonight. We can have some coffee if you want.”</p><p><em>That </em>was the choice presented to her. Kill him quick or watch him die slow. She wasn’t sure which was worse. Above all, she’d considered herself merciful. The thought of Karen and David slipped past her defences and she had to push them down. That wasn’t <em>her </em>anymore. Nancy would kill him. She would kill him, and she wouldn’t let the guilt eat her up, she would move on.</p><p>So that’s what she did. She took the knife and she walked up to him and she slit his throat. She wanted to sleep. She could go back to her cell and be left in peace, and in her dreams, she could forget that this had ever happened.</p><p>He was smiling. Softer than before. As if she’d caught him in a happy moment that she wasn’t supposed to see. The way he looked at her made her feel like a god. Whatever she wanted, he would’ve given it to her if only she was loyal to him. The power that he’d given her almost made it worse to know that she lived at his mercy.</p><p>Nancy stabbed the knife upright into the wood of the table and headed for the door, surprised when Negan stepped into her path, stopping her from leaving. It was the closest he’d gotten to her, always keeping space between them like he held a shield that she couldn’t see. If she’d gone for his throat, she might have gotten lucky and ended this here and now. It wasn’t worth the risk. She wasn’t racing against the clock, not while everyone else was (relatively) safe.</p><p>“I want you to be my wife, Nancy. Just like the girls you met, like Sherry. You saw them – happy and healthy and <em>safe. </em>Hell, a woman who can take down five of my men, can slit a man’s throat without hesitation, that’s the kind of woman I want by my side.” Negan’s words were dressed up to flatter her. He wanted to feel safe in her presence. Somewhere deep in his gut, he knew he ought to be scared of her and he thought that he could counter that with admiration or lust or just pure control.</p><p>She laughed at him because how else was she supposed to react to a proposal like that. This wasn’t the old world. There were no vows, there was no marriage license, there would be no ceremony. Especially here. He would decide that she was his wife now and that would be the end of it.</p><p>Giving her a sense of power might’ve lulled her into submission once. Not now. She wasn’t so foolish anymore. She knew how cruel the world was and she wasn’t going to pretend that anything she did could change that. All she could do was try to keep control of her own little corner of the universe, that would have to be enough.</p><p>“It’s not like you need my permission,” she bit out coldly, lip curled up in disdain.</p><p>“I’ve seen first-hand what you do to people who won’t take no for an answer. I’m not going <em>near </em>you ‘til I know you want me there. I’ll win you over. Just give me time.” Nancy understands him perfectly in that moment. In her mind, she had thought the marriage would serve as the first nail in her coffin, but Negan wanted it to be the last. He wanted her submissive and loyal before he let her anywhere near him.</p><p>It was smart. It might ruin her plan if he was patient enough, but she imagined that she was more stubborn than he thought. She was playing the long game and that was fine by her, so long as one day she could watch the life fade from his eyes.</p><p>If the price for that was weeks of flirtation, then she would pay it. Carol’s entire past – not hers, she thought pointedly - had taught her how to make men she despised believe she loved them. The past fifteen years had been a masterclass in how to make believe her affections were genuine. It would be a major undertaking, but she knew that she could do it.</p><p>“You have all the time in the world.” And he did.</p>
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